Report: Canada PM Aide Said Clinton Campaign Gave Assurances On NAFTA

One of the late breaking issues that hurt Democratic Senator Barack Obama in recent Texas and Ohio primaries involved allegations that his campaign gave winking private assurances to Canada not to worry about his anti-Nafta campaign rhetoric — a controversy the Clinton camp used to it’s advantage. But now it turns out that the allegation focused more on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Yet, the pre-Ohio primary stories only focused on the Obama campaign, not the Clinton campaign — which used it against Obama in Ohio. The Globe and Mail reports:

If the Prime Minister is seeking the first link in the chain of events that has rocked the U.S. presidential race, he need look no further than his chief of staff, Ian Brodie, The Canadian Press has learned.

A candid comment to journalists from CTV News by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most senior political staffer during the hurly-burly of a budget lock-up provided the initial spark in what the American media are now calling NAFTAgate.

Mr. Harper announced Wednesday that he has asked an internal security team to begin finding the source of a document leak that he characterized as being “blatantly unfair” to Senator Barack Obama.

And here is what reportedly happened:

“Quite a few people heard it,” said one source in the room.

“He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton’s campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry.”

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

They said that Mr. Brodie sought to allay concerns about the impact of Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton’s assertion that they would re-negotiate NAFTA if elected. But they did say that Mr. Brodie had no recollection of discussing any specific candidate — either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Obama.

TPM reacts:

The NAFTA-Gate controversy has taken another turn, one that could potentially boomerang back on Hillary Clinton after initially damaging Barack Obama.

The Canadian Press — Canada’s domestic equivalent of the AP — is reporting that the original source of the leak was Ian Brodie, chief of staff to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. And as it turns out, Brodie’s original conversation with reporters focused much more on Hillary as the candidate whose people were reassuring Canada that the anti-trade rhetoric was all just campaign talk.

…Hillary’s people were able to use NAFTA-Gate very effectively in questioning Obama’s honesty in the Ohio and Texas campaigns, ultimately pulling off some decent wins. But if this thing doesn’t die down, and the focus turns from Obama over to Hillary, they could very well see the story come back to bite them.

TPM also has an updated that notes that the Clinton camp has denied this quickly from the start, while “the Obama campaign was much slower to respond — possibly explaining why he got the worst of it in terms of publicity.”

There are all kinds of implications to this story. Will the Obama campaign will now use this latest report to use on Clinton? Will the Canadian and American press now try to figure out why the story became and remained Obama, with very little (if anything) in most stories about any assurances from the Clinton camp? How could that happen?

It was a story that suggested the Obama campaign was just one more political operation and “felt” true to most voters. So it did bring Obama’s “mystique” down. It provided lots of negative press for Obama and ammunition for the Clinton campaign.

Asks Andrew Sullivan: “Will the press take this back to the Clinton campaign? Or is the one unvetted candidate in this race going to get a pass again?”

The Carpetbagger Report’s Steve Benen:

So, let me get this straight. If this report is right, the Clinton campaign gave assurances to the Canadians not to worry about her rhetoric on NAFTA. The Clinton campaign then spent a week hammering Obama on alleged assurances to Canadians about his rhetoric on NAFTA?

Based on reporting from the Canadian Press (what is effectively the Canadian AP), Ian Brodie chatted with reporters about Obama and Clinton, but somehow, the story only ended up focusing on the prior, not the latter.

In a larger sense, the political damage is done. But there is a lesson for campaigns. Bill Clinton & Co. learned from Governor Michael Dukakis’ snail-paced response to charges that they needed a war room to respond INSTANTLY. Senator John Kerry forgot the lesson in 2000. Obama forgot the lesson here. And Obama should be ready to respond, since Clinton is getting published campaign strategy advice now from Karl Rove.